Correction: On October 30, 2024, this story was updated to attribute a description of the Dustin Inman Society to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The article now also explains that the description is the subject of a defamation lawsuit between the two organizations and modifies a reference to the group’s website.
The woman who won the Democratic primary in Georgia’s 11th Congressional District no longer is the candidate that Democrats are supporting in the race.
Instead, Democrats have rallied behind a write-in candidate they believe aligns with the party’s ideals and platform. They are convinced that the person whose name is on the ballot, Katy Stamper, is a Republican who won the primary under false pretenses.
The party is sending text messages and emails and posting to social media to tell District 11 voters to write in the name of the person designated as the “real Democrat” in the race: Tracey Verhoeven.
“This is not about me running and my campaign. This is about us,” Verhoeven said in a recent interview. “And standing up and saying, ‘We’re not going to be cheated anymore.’ And now we have a voice where we wouldn’t have if I wasn’t running.”
The incumbent in the 11th Congressional District — which sprawls from Smyrna to Adairsville in northwest Georgia before arching east to Pickens County — is U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Republican from Cassville and a heavy favorite to win a sixth term in Congress. The district was redrawn after the 2020 census to make it more conservative, meaning any Democrat is unlikely to win and especially one whose name isn’t even printed on ballots.
That hasn’t stopped local Democrats from rallying behind Verhoeven, who earlier this year ran for state Senate in hopes of competing against Republican incumbent Sen. Brandon Beach in the general election. She lost narrowly in the primary, but in the process earned some fans among local Democrats.
Verhoeven lives in Waleska in Cherokee County, where she is a single mother to a 7-year-old son. She currently manages her property rental company, but has some acting credits to her name from her time in California, where she was born and raised.
The party now says she is the official candidate and has the use of its resources, including the ability to campaign alongside other Democrats on the ballot.
Pam Shaouy, who also lives in Cherokee County, is among the local activists who first worked to amplify concerns about Stamper and now is part of the grassroots campaign backing Verhoeven.
Congressional races usually don’t get the attention of statewide and national contests, such as campaigns for president, and it’s been even harder to spread the message that the Democrat whose name is on the ballot isn’t the person the party supports, Shaouy said.
“It’s a heavy lift,” she said. “We still have to get the word out about Stamper and who she really is. Secondarily, we have to get the word out about Tracey.”
Democratic candidate, MAGA views
Stamper never identified as a Democrat, even as she campaigned to win the Democratic primary. She says she is an independent.
State election rules don’t allow the political parties to pick and choose who runs under their banner on the ticket. Some Republicans have tried to change that in hopes of barring candidates they don’t believe are conservative enough from the ballot.
Stamper qualified as a Democrat and launched a website with mainstream viewpoints, such as wanting to save Social Security and reduce inflation. But she also said she did not think transgender women should be allowed to play sports or use the bathroom of their choice — talking points for many Republican candidates. Public records also indicated that Stamper, an attorney in Woodstock, has voted as a Republican repeatedly since 1994 and had donated consistently to Republican candidates since 2020.
A search of activity under her birth name, Karen Sacandy, which Stamper legally changed in 2019, showed that she previously was aligned with a Marietta-based organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center identifies as an “anti-immigrant hate group.” The group has sued the Southern Poverty Law Center, claiming the description is false and defamatory because the group only opposes unlawful immigration. The group’s website linked to Sacandy’s activities twice, once in connection with a letter seeking information about the state’s Immigration Enforcement Review Board and again with a letter to the editor supporting legislation to prevent certain immigrants from obtaining driver’s licenses.
Local Democrats assumed Stamper didn’t have much of a chance to win the nomination, since the person who had won the primary in 2022, Antonio Daza, was on the ballot again. But on the night of the May election, Stamper emerged victorious, beating Daza 57% to 43%.
“Everybody was shocked when Antonio didn’t win,” Shaouy said. “So, that started to create some awareness.”
She said local party leaders in the district found their hands were tied legally; Stamper had won the primary and was their nominee.
Stamper’s campaign website has since been updated to reflect far-right viewpoints she describes as “Americans First.” Stamper said she supports the mass deportation of immigrants, wants to make same-sex marriage illegal and backs conversion therapy for transgender people.
She disavowed the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris on social media and reposted racist memes.
Stamper declined a recent interview request, but in a statement she said she won the primary “against a far-left out-of-touch opponent by addressing inflation and border problems that citizens really care about.”
Her statement also said people are leaving the Democratic Party in “droves” and that the Republican Party also is at fault for its “general failure to close the border and build the wall.”
The replacement candidate
Almost immediately after Stamper won the election, Democrats in the area began investigating what they could do to neutralize her. With no way to remove her from the ballot, they recruited Verhoeven as a write-in candidate.
“I love campaigning, getting out there, knocking on doors, talking to the people,” Verhoeven said. “And we’ve had such a lovely reception.”
She filled out the necessary paperwork to be certified as a write-in candidate so that votes for her count on Election Day. Then, her supporters petitioned the Democratic Party of Georgia to recognize her, and not Stamper, as the nominee in the race.
Tolulope Kevin Olasanoye, the Democratic Party of Georgia’s executive director, said Verhoeven is the only candidate in this race to embrace the party’s ideals.
“Katy Stamper has shown clearly that she is not the candidate who represents the voices and values of Georgia Democrats, and we strongly encourage voters to take that into account when they cast their ballots on Nov. 5,” he said in a statement.
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